With no sign of a break in the global economic downturn, an online poll found that 46.7 percent of Taiwanese employees had taken unpaid leave at some point since October and seen an average NT$16,438 (US$494.6), or 30 percent deduction in their monthly income.
More than 60 percent of workers in the nation’s information technology (IT) and manufacturing industries reported taking unpaid leave, the online human resource agency 1111 Job Bank’s (1111人力銀行) survey found.
It said 46.7 percent of respondents took days off when their companies asked them to, while 21.4 percent took more than three days off per week and 16.6 percent took more than 10 days off per month.
“We estimate that more than 250,000 people have taken unpaid leave between October and now and the number is increasing every day,” 1111 Job Bank chief operating officer and spokesman Ryan Wu (吳睿穎) said at a media briefing yesterday.
The latest figures from the Council of Labor Affairs showed that 18 percent of companies with more than 200 workers asked employees to take unpaid leave last month and that 202,000 workers were affected.
“More than 80 percent of respondents said they felt depressed during their unpaid vacation days and 3.81 percent said they had considered committing suicide, which shows the signs of a worsening crisis,” Wu said.
Around 21 percent of respondents expected their company to stop asking workers to take unpaid leave at the end of March, while 37 percent said they did not know when the policy would end.
Wu said unpaid leave caused workers to feel uncertain about their future and lose confidence in their company.
“Although unpaid leave is a flexible way to help businesses ride out the economic downturn, unfortunately, some businesses are using the practice to avoid their obligation to pay severance pay,” Wu said.
“These workers, who are categorized in the low-wage group, may be living under much worse conditions than those who receive unemployment compensation and the government needs to address this problem,” he said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”